THE IMPACT OF THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER ON THE WORLD COMMUNITY

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More than thirty years ago, the world was exclusion zone is preserved, free from any kind of threatened with the catastrophe to reliably esti- life, and the state of the “frozen” nuclear power mate the value and scale of which is still not pos- plant needs constant monitoring. The tragic conti- sible. The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear nuity of the experience of the Chernobyl liquida- power plant had disastrous consequences for the tors continues in Japan, which experienced a radia- environment. Hundreds of Soviet citizens fell tion emission at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power victim to the altar of the atom, and the immedi- plant in 2011. Despite this, the time frame of this ate threat to the livelihood of the world commu- work allows us to trace precisely the turning point nity was created. The problems that had to be in the perception of international security pol- fought in 1986 had not previously been encoun- icy. After all, only major shocks, the deadly prox- tered in world practice. imity of danger can often become an impetus to The experience of Chernobyl affected not making atypical decisions, developing new strate- only the sciences and technology. All world gov- gies and tactics of behaviour. Did they affect the ernments were challenged, conditions were cre- further fate of the states? Bared or tempered ated in which the authorities had a choice in them? In many respects, therefore, the period un- which direction to move further, how to avoid der review is symbolically completed simultane- the possible repetitions of Chernobyl. ously with the disintegration of the state that suf- With the aim to study the international ef- fered the most damage from the catastrophe. fect of a nuclear disaster, the period of time was The subject of the research is the interpre- selected starting with the date of the accident, tation of the Chernobyl phenomenon in the inter- April 26, 1986, ending with the date of the col- national aspect. “What did the Pripyat disaster lapse of the USSR, which finally attributed the mean for foreign policy of the USSR and what city of Pripyat and the elimination of the conse- did it inspire the leaders of the world nuclear quences of a nuclear explosion in it to the depart- powers? ” - such is the problem of work. Partic- ment of the Ukrainian government. ular attention is paid to the relations of the USSR It is impossible not to say that both the invis- and the USA, as states that for the most part of ible and quite tangible consequences of Chernobyl the 20th century and onward have been fighting are felt today. In the area of the city of Pripyat, the for “nuclear leadership”. © Prokofyeva A. Yu., 2019. Prokofyeva Alina Yurievna (palinajj@gmail.com), student III course of the Historical Faculty of the Samara University, 443086, Russia, Samara, Moskovskoye Shosse, 34. Вестник молодых учёных и специалистов Самарского университета. 2019. № 1 (14) 123 The aim is to establish the relationship of programs of the Soviet and Western media avail- the atomic explosion in Ukraine and changes in able on the Internet today have also been taken the USSR foreign policy, the cessation of the into consideration [4]. Documentaries of domes- country's existence. tic and foreign production, containing interviews The objectives of the research are as fol- with witnesses of the disaster and those involved lows: into it, have also been taken into account [5]. • consideration of the position of the USSR The second half of the twentieth century in the international arena in the period under was marked by a whole complex of alternating study from the point of view of Western and do- vectors of the USSR’s foreign policy. Inside each mestic authors and researchers; of them had multiple contradictions, but by ex- • the definition of the policy of the USSR posing them to generalize, we can form a picture, in relation to the United States; against which events will unfold in 1986. • analysis of the role of Chernobyl in the Hailed in 1960s L. I. Brezhnev's path to aggregate causes of the collapse of the USSR. defusing international tensions was aimed at a Part of the information concerning the real relative expansion of contacts with the state of affairs in the exclusion zone was pub- West. It yielded positive results in the sphere of lished in the USSR only after 1989, when the mutual relations between the USSR and the “public gateways were opened” and a stream of USA. During this period they signed "Agreement publications, including Western magazines, on the Prevention of Nuclear War", "Agreement poured into the country [1]. Today we can focus on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy", SALT- on declassified party documents, eyewitness I and SALT-II treaties on the limitation of strate- notes, reports [2], the participants of the events gic weapons, the "Declaration on the Prevention themselves. of a Nuclear Catastrophe" [6]. Signing the Hel- Materials from the book by sinki Declaration [7] 1975 secured postwar A. Yaroshinskaya "Chernobyl. Big Lie" have rights of the USSR on the European space. been used in the paper. The author is a native of Thus, at the beginning of the 1980s the Ukraine, a publicist, and later a deputy specializ- USSR became an influential actor on the world ing in nuclear non-proliferation issues. political scene, the leader of the communist bloc, The book “presents a critical look at the policies while at the same time its relations with the of the USSR, publishes letters from residents of United States were approaching the dialogue the exclusion zone, and also relies on the articles based on a rational solution of common prob- of the former Soviet professorship, and most im- lems. However, the policy of detente did not portantly - on the forty secret Politburo proto- stand the test of the conflict in Afghanistan and cols, copies of which were taken personally by turned into an increase in the arms race. In other the author a month before the collapse of the words, at the time of the Chernobyl disaster The USSR” [1]. The validity of such a source can be USSR was one of the two major nuclear powers, questioned (the author claimed the genre to be “a a state whose ambitions were not limited to the documentary novel”). However, it ensured repre- leadership in the field of armaments. sentation and social point of view, being part of Gorbachev’s coming to power did not turn the private investigation performed by the author. the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and the Thus, it proves valuable for this research. demand for superiority continued. This is proved Another reference work was the Sixth vol- by the records made by Chernyaev, Assistant ume of a series of books on US international re- Secretary General, in which he wrote that “Gor- lations, published by the US State Depart- bachev creates the image of the Soviet Union as ment. The series is a collection of official docu- a "world value"” [8]. At the same tome nuclear ments in the field of international relations. The safety has always remained the sphere of priority authors refer to the access to secret data, includ- agreements for both the Soviet state and devel- ing those located in the R. Reagan Presidential oped countries, whose existence in the bipolar Library. This allows to use the official chronicles world directly depended on the nuclear realities of meetings of the heads of the United States and realizing nuclear power. the USSR after 1986, to explore their develop- Since the time of the bombing of Japan by ment [3]. The newspapers and television 1986 there have been more than 40 years, in 124 История addition, for the countries of the West the loca- unknown acid was accompanied by fear, accord- tion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was too far to ing to the words of Serbian Ambassador to make them think about the nuclear bombing and Ukraine Rade Bulatovic [13]. its aftereffects. Whereas Chernobyl made people Overseas, in Canada in particular, the news for the first time to realize that losing control of Chernobyl came from Sweden. The initial re- over a nuclear plant can result releasing radioac- lease affected not only Europe, but also led to the tive material “with extensive consequences for transfer of a small amount of radiation to China, health and environment, which requires the im- Japan and the United States. The IAEA received plementation special measures” [9]. The tragedy information on the pollution of 23 Member occurred at 1 hours 23 minutes April 26, States. 1986 . In the upper part of the reactor an explo- The official announcement of information sion occurred, which caused a heat and destroyed about Chernobyl took place on April 28, part of the roof. At 3 hours 30 minutes the fire 1986 at 21:00, and it was also the same data for was extinguished [2]. the republics of the Soviet Union, and for West- On the day of April 26, the western com- erners. The news programme “Vremya” carried munity had no information about radioactive re- the following information: “An accident oc- leases from the official authorities of the curred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. One USSR. On May 13, 1986 in Moscow, meetings of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being were held with representatives of embassies of taken to eliminate the consequences of the inci- foreign countries, as well as separately with the dent. The necessary assistance was provided to ambassadors of socialist countries. They re- the victims. A government commission was es- ceived answers to all their questions [2]. Today tablished to investigate the incident” [14]. this imperfection of the information exchange Swedish journalist Hedborg Elizabeth, lasting for two weeks seems to be impossible; 30 who was at that time in Ukraine, says: “Then it years ago very few people could have imagined was impossible so openly to call and ask ... The its fatality. worst thing is that the lack of official information The first country that registered the emis- contributed to the emergence of various rumors” sion of nuclides into the atmosphere at 6 am on [11]. April 27 was Sweden [10]. All sources agree on The reaction of the West was mixed. The this. Scientists have determined that 4.4% of the line between resentment and sympathy was total radioactive cesium fell in Sweden. The thin. On April 29 an article was published in most affected territories were the northern prov- “New York Times” where the Soviet govern- inces of the country. That day, many residents of ment was accused of withholding information Sweden were awaiting the results of the hockey about the accident. The American media wrote championship, held in Moscow. At the same about the percentage of pollution in the neighbor- time, Forsmark NPP specialists recorded an in- ing countries of the USSR, referring to their met- crease in radiation background. The evacuation rological studies, and pointed to the repetitive na- of personnel was announced, and the search for a ture of this recognized by the Secretary General leak began. Each worker was individually of Nuclear Accidents [15]. checked on a dosimeter. In the absence of identi- The same position was largely lobbied fied causes, the NPP personnel were sent home, in those April days by ABC. To their studio but the situation of information ignorance lasted [16] they invited doctors, public figures, scien- until the evening of April 28 [11]. tists. Assumptions were made about the contam- Soon the radioactive cloud has reached the ination of all drinking water of the Dnieper ba- limits of Finland. Later, 4.3% radioactive cesium sin. Among the guests was an American politi- was deposited there. Neither the media nor the cian of the Soviet origin, Dmitri Simes, giving government of the state could explain the pollu- his opinion on the issue of Chernobyl: “Their (- tion. Radiation Safety Center of Finland spoke of the government of the USSR) instinct is to wait a “possible accident at one of the reactors” [12]. as long as possible and report as little as possi- Further on nuclear pollution was detected ble”. This view has been widely circulated in the on the territory of Yugoslavia. The Chernobyl West, and in support of it we can turn to R. disaster caused almost a fatal rain, the news about Reagan’s entry in his diary. On April 30 the Вестник молодых учёных и специалистов Самарского университета. 2019. № 1 (14) 125 President of the United States wrote: “The day new criterion of foreign policy. The then US was interrupted by a message about the accident president spoke in the same language with the in the Soviet Chernobyl. As usual, the Russians Secretary General of the CPSU Central Commit- will not provide any facts...” [17]. tee, whose thesis on the formation of a single in- A lot of negative feedback from America terdependent world became the key position of came to Gorbachev, who had been in office for the concept of a new political thinking. The day year. The anti-Soviet campaign of the govern- of Chernobyl instantly lifted the universal ments, politicians and the media of some NATO value - life -over the “class consciousness” [19]. countries, especially the United States, intention- Indeed, the international position of the ally exaggerating the actual scale of the accident USSR was twofold. Along with the criticism of was absolutely clear. Later, the “Pravda” news- the Soviets, even in the US news bulletins there paper wrote: “Some foreign agencies and all were the words: “Let's see what can be done sorts of radio voices tried to sow panic, reporting jointly on the issue of nuclear energy and weap- about the death of thousands of people, about a ons including” [16]. nuclear explosion, about ramping exposure of al- Some American doctors arrived at the So- most the entire European part of the country and viet Union on a private initiative to help the vic- neighboring states ... What could be more dis- tims in the treatment of radiation sickness, leuke- graceful than gloating over misfortune?” [18]. mia and bone marrow transplantation. Among Thus, immediately after the acci- them was a specialist from the USA, Dr. Gale, dent, Chernobyl provoked a new round of infor- whose achievements most often sound in the mation war between the USSR and the memories of the liquidators [20]. USA. This is confirmed by declassified materi- On the one hand, the country was con- als archives of the USSR. At the time when the demned for withholding information and negli- whole world was talking about the threat that gence in relation to nuclear energy, it signifi- was The Soviet Union, the KGB, tried to prevent cantly weakened its status with financial losses the thickening of clouds over Chernobyl by for- and the absolute unwillingness of the authorities eign media, gave them their agents, creating the to accept the state of emergency in the re- appearance of complete security in Pripyat and gion, and on the other hand, Chernobyl became its district [16]. At the same time, it was excep- a major precedent in the conditions of the cold tional optimism and the absence of specific num- war, catalyzing international sympathy for the bers that caused distrust of the Western sources. Soviet Union. In May 1986, IAEA experts were admit- Four months after the disaster, the interna- ted to Moscow, in August Vienna hosted an in- tional conference took place in Vienna with the ternational conference on the analysis of the participation of technical experts and representa- causes of the Chernobyl accident and the assess- tives of international organizations. They under- ment of the radiological consequences of this ac- went discussion of the causes of the disaster and cident. The following were adopted in Septem- the methods of its elimination, reports from So- ber: the Convention on Early Notification of a viet scientists were heard, but the foreign aid was Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assis- not provided to Ukraine until the collapse of the tance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident and a Ra- USSR. Thus, using the example of Soviet Cher- diological Emergency. In the context of the Iran- nobyl, the world community was shown a set of Iraq, the Afghan wars, the ongoing rivalry in the problems of nuclear realities, in particular: the field of armaments, the governments of harm of the information blockade, the threat of the USSR and the USA were put on the same side an uncontrolled atom, its impact on the ecology of the battle with atomic energy. Reagan and human life, the imperfection of modern tech- said: “Rarely the interdependence of modern in- nologies and the danger of the development of dustrialized countries manifested itself more the Cold War. These factors appealed to a bal- clearly than these days (Chernobyl days)”. anced international interaction. The indirect in- The Soviet Foreign Minister, E. Shevard- fluence of the Chernobyl tragedy on the bipolar nadze, wrote in his book: “The Day of Cherno- world began. byl, as I called for myself April 26, 1986, became For many decades since World War II, the So- a new frontier of reference in the world history, a viet Union held a confrontational position in relation 126 История to the United States. The nuclear powers were two In September 1986, the General Confer- explosive poles. At the beginning of Gorbachev’s ence of the IAEA convened. A large role at it was reign, the ideas of partner relations with assigned to the development of a reliable system the West were perceived by the Soviet state apparatus of measures to prevent nuclear terrorism in all its with hostility. “What other new thinking? We have manifestations. The conference report stated the right mindset. Let Americans change their think- that initiatives to create an international regime ing” [21], - BN Ponomarev, Secretary of the Party for the safe development of nuclear energy Central Committee, commented on the proposals for were closely related to the problems of military changes in the Foreign Ministry. Long-term mem- detente and nuclear disarmament. bers of the CPSU and the head of state stood on op- Exactly a month later, at the initiative of posite sides of the barricades. The new leader needed Gorbachev, a meeting was held with Reagan in new advisers, and Edward Shevardnadze was ap- Reykjavik. The Soviet Union, which suffered pointed head of the Foreign Ministry. catastrophic economic losses to eliminate the At the time Gorbachev came to power, consequences of Chernobyl and the construction the already not simple relations between the of a sarcophagus, focused mainly on protecting it states were again complicated. The American from new unpredictable attacks on the territory President called the USSR an “evil empire” and of the state using unexplored PIO technologies. did not intend to make concessions in the direc- The explosion of the reactor in Pripyat and the tion of its new head. Gorbachev was set up spread of the nuclear cloud turned out to be little a compromise and in 1985 he met with Reagan in sensitive to lead to mutual agreements between Geneva. Politicians were talking about nuclear the US and the USSR on the reduction of nuclear weapons. The Soviet side proposed a plan to re- weapons. The US side convinced the USSR that duce the strategic missiles of the USSR in ex- it did not intend to use the SDI for an attack on change for the United States abandoning the PIO the Union, in turn, the American representatives, space weapons they were developing. However, led by Reagan, said, the SDI would be able to re- the meeting did not bring any practical results. move all nuclear energy from the application. Even the scale of the arms race did not force Gorbachev set his goal fully on the Disarma- NATO leaders to give up their interests.In the ment. For the first time in history, the Soviet Sec- same year, on the fortieth anniversary of the retary General proposed the elimination of bombing of Hiroshima, the USSR announced a half of their land-based strategic missiles. How- moratorium on nuclear explosions. The United ever, the agreement with the amendment on the States, in turn, did not see the need to stop the preservation of space weapons was not tests of either the atom or the PIO. signed. The public acceptance was tense. The The Chernobyl disaster made everybody Secretary General described the summit in Rey- look at the problem from a different angle. Con- kjavik as follows: “Reagan had three steps to go sequently, it had an impact on the “levers”, hid- to become a great president” [21]. den in the depths of the authoritarian regime, In 1987, an agreement on the elimination non-public, but to make the leadership of the of medium-range and short-range nuclear mis- USSR to recognize the necessity of adjusting the siles was reached in 1987 through long multi- internal and foreign policy. Let us turn to the as- stage negotiations at the highest level, visits by sessment of events by the ruling elites them- the US Secretary of State to Moscow and meet- selves. Gorbachev's biographer devoted a small ings in Washington, accompanied by mistrust, but important fragment to the role of disas- concessions and debates. Considering that ter. According to him, the psychological barrier the USSR had 4 times more of them than the in the widespread reform activities was over- Americans, the treaty is considered unprofitable come in 1986, Chernobyl untied the hands of the for the Soviet Union. Despite unprecedented con- Secretary General for more decisive action. cessions, the document played a key role in re- Gorbachev assessed the external situation ducing the threat of nuclear conflicts. of the USSR in 1986 as follows: “The Chernobyl Total, “new thinking” has succeeded in tragedy was used as alleged evidence that we still working to end the nuclear arms race. The Cher- do not intend to “open up”, are insidious, do not nobyl disaster catalyzed the emerging interna- deserve trust” [22]. tional cooperation, showed that it is impossible Вестник молодых учёных и специалистов Самарского университета. 2019. № 1 (14) 127 to hide from its consequences even behind the “The governments of countries where nu- iron curtain. The following important interna- clear accidents happened were never sufficiently tional documents were adopted: the Convention frank,” such a comment was found in a book on on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Chernobyl chronicles. Soviet officials, in re- the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a sponse to advance questions, refer to the previ- Nuclear Accident or a Radiological Emergency. ously occurring nuclear accidents, in particular Later, Ukraine and Belarus will be given hu- secret American Tsami Three-Mile-Island and manitarian support from Sweden, international pro- noted the broad practice of classifying infor- grams and mutual aid funds will be organized for the mation about the consequences of nuclear emis- victims of Chernobyl, the standards for handling nu- sions [10]. However, is it possible to prevent clear power in the IAEA will be tightened, the con- such an attitude to Chernobyl, radiological struction of new nuclear power plants will be sus- equivalent of which is a thousand times superior pended. Gorbachev will say: “Chernobyl really to the accident in the United States? opened my eyes, in a sense, my life was divided be- The management made a decision that tween before and after” [22]. The international reso- the people should not witness the weakness of nance of a technogenic catastrophe will leave a trace the system. At first, no one knew what to do, and in the history of nuclear energy, as well as in the therefore human heroism was used. Such an ap- sphere of international relations. proach to solving vital problems could not but Thus, the Chernobyl catastrophe partly generate distrust and confusion among citizens. provoked strong distrust of the Soviet Union and They tried to hush up the disaster for as long as its policy of information blockade on the part of possible. Thanks to intelligence and meteorolog- other states which set in a serious doubt in the ical measurements, the Western services had possibility of cooperation with the government more information about what had happened than of “new thinking” on equal mutually advanta- the Soviet people themselves. Domestic newspa- geous conditions. The public abroad was an- pers either put messages on the accident on the noyed and frightened, but what happened inside last pages, or wrote articles about the heroism of the state itself? the liquidators. In the meantime, people were in The imperfection of information about the the dark about the state of water, the implemen- Chernobyl accident affected not only the neigh- tation of radiation monitoring of food products, boring states, but directly the population of the the dangers of both internal and external radia- nearby Pripyat regions. At that time, when the tion. main emission of radiation into the atmosphere It cannot be denied that the Soviet special- occurred, the value of which was many times ists, as well as the government apparatus, were higher than what was permissible for a person, not prepared to deal with an incident of this mag- the residents of Pripyat and neighboring vil- nitude. In the state, robotics was not developed lages slept in their houses and lived for another sufficiently to completely replace human losses day as usual: weddings were played, people in the aftermath of the explosion, there were no walked in parks, prepared for May Day demon- developed technologies for extinguishing fires in strations [23]. “The radiation situation in Pripyat reactors, and workers' means of protection. did not yet require immediate evacuation - it was “Chernobyl became the first test of blindness, postponed in order to avoid panic,” says the offi- and it failed,” - said E. Shevardnadze years later cial version of the authorities [10]. [19]. The lack of reliable information is the first The orientation of the new political course thing that citizens from contaminated areas have on publicity has been undermined. According to encountered. Residents were removed from Pri- the reports of the secret meetings in the Polit- pyat on April 27, 1986, and the next day the en- buro, dedicated to health care, “the publication of tire country learned about the Chernobyl nuclear data on the number and condition of victims in power plant incident on television. Peo- the hospital was recognized as expedient ..., tak- ple from Ukraine and Belarus tried to find ing into account the fact that American special- out how dangerous the accident was, but during ists work in this hospital” [16]. Further protocols the first three weeks after the incident, they had talked about the identification of chil- to be content with only rumors. dren with 500 diseases, which is five times 128 История higher than the cancer dose. At the same time, the existence. For the people accustomed to believe reports of the Ministry of Health indicate the ab- in the greatness of their state, this incident simply sence of diseases due to the radiation factor.The could not happen. The country's ideology, which nuclear physicist Gerashchenko, who was in was undergoing some changes due to the new Kiev in 1986, testified in his book afterwards the course of power, had to face additional difficul- details of the disaster. “The irradiated people ties. brought to Kiev were not even tried to be Indeed, Chernobyl demonstrated an under- treated”. The city did not have enough blood for mining from within the state. “The huge gaping transfusions and bone marrow for transplantation crater of the 4th power unit exposed deep cracks to several tens of thousands of people at once in the state. Chernobyl is the bell ringing the sys- [16]. tem”, said the Soviet historian and political sci- The problem of publicity was discussed entist who studied the phenomenon of Cherno- immediately after the Chernobyl accident. Polit- byl, D. Volkogonov. The crisis directly affected buro members had long argued whether it was the economy of the Soviet Union: economic worth giving priority information to socialist losses of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia in the countries or the Soviet people, which versions of years 1986-1989 exceeded 9.2 billion rubles. Ex- the incident should be offered to European coun- act numbers are difficult to give today to the gov- tries. ernments of each of the republics. Confidential According to the official version, which reports state that in these conditions the decision will later be included into the circulation of was made to dilute across the Union “clean” in- books on Chernobyl’s memory and mem- fected meat in a proportion of ¼ and it was deliv- oirs, Gorbachev said at a meeting of the Polit- ered to the markets of the country. In addition, buro: “The system was overwhelmed by subser- the environment, groundwater, forests and wild- vience, flattery and embellishment of the truth ... life have been exposed to gigantic ecological ca- persecution of critics, boasting, protectionism tastrophe. In the plant world of the exclusion and cronyism of the leadership. There was an ac- zone mutations began. Another problem was the cident in Chernobyl, and no one was ready - nei- psychological damage of an entire social ther civil defense, nor medical institutions. They group. Chernobyl victims were aware of them- didn’t even prepare the minimum required num- selves isolated from society, they were prone to ber of dosimeters” [22]. suicide, bouts of despair, self-pity, were afraid Already years later, Chernyaev would con- for themselves and their offspring, the victims clude about the role of Chernobyl: “... we cannot could not get a number of positions, were de- hide anything: not only in the sense of the acci- pendent on government payments. dent, but also in the sense of what happens in our Chernobyl catalyzed the growth of discon- economy, what happens in our society, if we re- tent. It is no coincidence that KGB messages ally want normal develop. In this sense, this trag- about the emergence of new protest movements edy gave impetus - as I now formulate - to trans- in the Ukrainian SSR fall precisely in 1986. Al- form publicity as a party policy to spread the ready in the summer of this year, there were sig- ideas of restructuring, that is, in the old sense of nals about the distribution of leaflets of anti-So- the problem, into real freedom of speech” [24]. viet content. In 1987, for the first anniversary of In addition to the lack of publicity, which the tragedy, mass protests were prepared against was a perennial feature of the state, the case con- the authorities' scrutiny of the truth about the ac- cerned the axis of ideological aspects. The So- cident; the population complained about insuffi- viet Union was a pioneer in using the energy of cient assistance.As a result, already by 1990, the peaceful atom. The atomic potential was Ukraine’s citizens began to realize that inde- something indestructible, something for which pendence would bring them more bene- Soviet scientists were so happy and the heads of fits. They themselves will be able to choose the state competed. The disaster at the Chernobyl nu- path of development of the country and nuclear clear power plant destroyed all government as- energy in it. surances about the safety of nuclear power, ques- On the whole, the system could not cope tioned the qualifications of the personnel of So- with complex problems in all spheres of life and viet nuclear power plants and their very under the influence of catalytic factors, an Вестник молодых учёных и специалистов Самарского университета. 2019. № 1 (14) 129 important role among which was played by Cher- News. URL:https://www. youtube.com/watch?v= nobyl, the Soviet Union collapsed. uvAlWPeGEyY (date of the application: The territory of 30 km around Pripyat, still 08.04.2018). remains a zone of alienation, a reminder of the 6. Declaration on the Prevention of Nu- tragic day of April 26, 1986, its mistakes and ex- clear Catastrophe. UN. News. URL: http:// www. ploits, bureaucracy and sacrifice, all the lessons un.org/ru/documents/decl_conv/declarations/ learned in relation to the atom. Chernobyl made nuc_catastrophe_prevention.html (date of the ap- it clear that the world more than ever needs co- plication: 20.04.2018). operation, a revision of confrontational issues, a 7. Helsinki Declaration. OSCE. URL: balanced policy within states. The disaster https://www.osce.org/ru/mc/39505 (date of the showed that first of all, people want to hear com- application: 20.04.2018). petent and intelligible answers to the questions of 8. Chernyaev A. S. Chernyaev Diaries. vital importance from the government, the media URL: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/eng/text_files/ and international organizations. Chernyaev/1985.pdf (date of the application: Many of the problems posed by Cherno- 27.04.2018). byl have not been solved yet. Difficult questions 9. International scale of nuclear and radio- remain about the financing of modern work at logical events of the IAEA. URL: nuclear power plants, unauthorized deforesta- https://www.IAEA.org/sites/default/files/ines_ tion in the alienation zone, and the recycling of rus.pdf (date of the application: 23.04.2018). contaminated metal. Of great concern is the pos- 10. Wozniak V. Ya., Kovalenko A. P., sibility of building a nuclear waste storage facil- Troitsky S. N. Chernobyl: events and lessons. M. ity for the European part of the continent near 1989. P. 5-260. Pripyat. The foreseeable future of uninhabited 11. Sweden Russian Radio. URL: Pripyat remains unknown: will it become a full- https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?pro- fledged object of tourist routes and stalkers' paths gramid= 2103& artikel=6355829 (date of the ap- or will it retain its non-entry status? plication: 28.04.2018). The research has shown that the history of 12. Remembering Chernobyl, from Fin- any state - from its formation to the fall - stands land News. URL: https://112. international/opin- on the pillars of the viability of all its ion/remembering-chernobyl-from-finland-4270. spheres. The Chernobyl tragedy penetrated all re- html (date of the application: 28.04.2018). gions of the country. The accident pointed to the 13. Remembering Chernobyl, from Serbia. place of rotting supports of the Soviet regime. As URL: https://112. international/opinion /remem- a litmus paper, the disaster first showed the im- bering-chernobyl-from-serbia-4342.html (date perfections of the state, and then acted as a cata- of the application: 28.04.2018). lyst for their gain. The ecological disaster which 14. The message of the program about began in 1986 started a period of gradual disinte- Chernobyl Time from 04.04.1986. URL: gration of a superpower. 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About the authors

Alina Yurievna Prokofyeva

Samara University

Email: palinajj@gmail.com
Russia, Samara

References

Supplementary files